F1 teams head into the unknown as testing for new season gets under way in Jerez

How efficiently will new engines run? Are new cars down on power? These
questions and more will have designers and engineers scratching their heads
as testing gets going

In with the new: F1 teams put new cars through their paces in front of media's glare in JerezPhoto: PA

By Daniel Johnson,, F1 Correspondent, in Jerez

7:10AM GMT 28 Jan 2014

The sign above the track entrance at Jerez, where Formula One has descended upon for the first pre-season test, should really read 'Carnivals of the Animals' or 'Welcome to the Zoo' if the first cars we have seen are anything to go by.

On account of the new noses, according to the Twittersphere we have the anteater, the crooked crab, the beluga, and the proboscis monkey among the ranks of 2014 Formula One cars. In response to regulation changes designed to improve safety, we have ended up with hugely varying interpretations of those rules in the name of aerodynamic performance.

As the teams get to work in Jerez, the 'Royal March of the Lion' as Camille Saint-Saens would have us call it, the uniformity of previous seasons has disappeared, with rather peculiar looking appendages (McLaren) or dramatically sloping front ends (Ferrari) in its place.

Some have chastened the new designs for being ugly, but that seems just a small price to pay when we have significant aesthetic differences between cars for the first time in years.

Gone too is the uniformity of engine performance. The development of the previously used 2.4 litre V8s was stalled, meaning the difference between engine manufacturers was so minor that it was rarely a factor I'm the racing. But as Formula One ushers in another turbo era, this time with extensive use of energy recovery, the power train will once again have a discernible impact on the pecking order.

To return to the animal analogy, think of the 1.6 litre V6s as slightly slimmed down lions which can go much longer without a meal. The relative power, efficiency and cooling of the Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault engines should all come into play.

All this adds up to the teams arriving in Jerez with less of a clue about how the season is likely to unfold than at any time in recent history. How efficiently will their engine run? Are they down on power? Have they missed a trick in their interpretation of the new aerodynamic rules? All of these questions will be vexing designers and engineers over the coming days, weeks and months.

Of course, it is hard to imagine that the big teams - Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren, and possibly Lotus once they start testing in Bahrain and can overcome their financial hurdles - will not be somewhere near the front. They have the biggest budgets and manpower in the sport.

But the possibility of a mixed up grid, you would have to say, is more likely than at any time in recent seasons.

At first, therefore, there is no escaping the fact that as a spectator sport Formula One could be mightily confusing. Understanding the mixture of different tyre strategies and fuel strategies is not going to be easy to follow.

As Jenson Button said on the launch of McLaren's MP4-29 last week: "There going to be a lot of power management and fuel management.

"It's going to be complicated for the viewer and I hope there is something on the TV to help them - how much battery power we've used, how much fuel we've used. The viewer needs this, because information is the key to everything. It's going to make the racing this year."

The broadcasters, Sky and the BBC, are thought to be working with Formula One Management to come up with some clever graphics to show all this information, and without this the sport could be a minefield to follow.

As someone put it to me on Twitter recently: "How am I supposed to watch a sport when you need an app to follow all the pit stops?" I'm afraid you might need two apps for the start of this season.

But all this potential confusion aside, uncertainty is good for Formula One. After four years of Red Bull hegemony, dramatic rule change should help to mix things up a bit.

Formula One will most likely leave Jerez on Friday evening still without a clear idea of who is quick and who is not: that it the nature of testing and we will have to wait until qualifying in Melbourne for a fuller picture. But at least we will have heard a different kind of lion roar.